A 33-year-old woman who used to live in southern Maine died this week in Delaware, where she may have been struck by a train, her family said.

Sarah Meyer, who graduated from South Portland High School in 2002 and the University of New England, was visiting relatives in Newark, Delaware, when she disappeared during an afternoon bike ride Monday, Newark police said.

Sarah Meyer Photo courtesy of Gustavo Alfaro

Two days later, police discovered a body on the train tracks near a well-known bicycle path that runs parallel to the Amtrak rail bed.

Newark Police Department spokesman Lt. Fred Nelson said the body was found a short distance from where Meyer was believed to have been bicycling. Police said the victim appeared to have been struck by a passing train, but Amtrak police will be responsible for completing the investigation.

An Amtrak spokesman said the maximum speed for a train in the area is 135 mph, and there is fencing along the track in that area.

Positive identification of the remains is pending through the Delaware Medical Examiner’s Office.

But Meyer’s husband, Gustavo Alfaro, said the family believes the remains are those of Meyer, and they are grieving her loss as police from Amtrak, which has jurisdiction over incidents on its tracks, investigate.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for prayers for Sarah,” Alfaro wrote in a Facebook message Thursday. “The love and support her family and I are receiving is overwhelming. I can only say that she loved each and every one of you and that you touched her life.”

Alfaro and Meyer were married July 8, he said.

According to information posted on her Facebook account, Meyer worked as an occupational therapist at a community hospital in San Luis Obispo, California.

Newark police listed her last known permanent address as Paso Robles, California, about 30 miles from the hospital where she worked and roughly equidistant from Los Angeles and San Francisco along the California coast.

Meyer received a bachelor’s degree in health science from UNE in 2006, and a master’s degree in occupational therapy in 2007, also from UNE.

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